Warning. Long post.
And yet it remains true that we cannot still and may never be able to reliably predict the behavior of a human being in combat, or tell if he's lying reliably. There is a saying about spies that would hold equally true to anyone who has gone off the deep end; all it takes is the will to do nothing until the right moment. There's a reason why modern nuclear weapons procedures rely on the two-man rule. Granting that kind of power to one person is considered far too dangerous.
Incidentally, this might explain why FS bombers are so incredibly huge; they have their own two-man rule or possibly a dedicated security guy to validate their launches. (Lord knows they've the room for that.)
Individuals are put under similar stress to combat situations during the course of the Pilots Course, and COMSURV. If one cannot handle the stress of being shot at, they are going to fail. As time goes by, we get better at sniffing out individuals who cannot function in combat, and weeding out those who are not 110% Pilot material. As I've said before, we take steps in the Modern Military to eliminate the risk of this happening. Besides, there's a Chain of Command to be followed if an individual has a problem, and psychological support. Trust the UEF to have the latter in spades, valuing psychological and spiritual health so highly.
The TSB was considered effective in its time because of its unit cohesion; in simple terms, it never broke, you had to wipe it out or force its commander to pull it back. Question answered.
Who's to say you can replicate this in an entire planet's Fighter Corps? Turn them all into homosexual lovers, and then put them in the same unit? I don't think so. Fair enough, here we have a documented case of it working, but our system's been serving us right for hundreds of years, getting better as we progress. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Any regulation that is issued and regularly disobeyed is a threat to discipline and stability in a unit.
Fair enough, this regulation is broken. Name me a Fighter Squadron in a respectable Air Force that breaks this regulation on a regular basis. One of my late family members was an Mi-24 pilot in the SLAF, even in a helicopter squadron in a third-world country, I didn't hear about any fraternizing of this nature.
No, but you can make it work for you, as the TSB did. Assign them to the same wing pair. You can build on existing relationships in this way. Armies in the past have recruited on a territorial basis for the same reason.
That's quite true, now what happens when relationships end? You've now got a tight-knit four man team that's divided down the centre. In combat, mixing and matching your pilots is not the most preferable course of action. And now what's your lover going to do when his boyfriend gets his ass shot up? Become combat ineffective for a week? This is creating a whole host of problems that needn't be there on the front line. By allowing this, you fix one problem, and create ten others. This kind of thinking does not sit well with military types.
This is not practical to keeping your squadron a functional combat unit. The analogous situation is WW2, where the original rules were two years after a malarial attack you couldn't fly. They cut it to two months fast but it wasn't good enough to keep units in combat. They had to release authority to return to duty status to the flight surgeon. The same thing happened with combat fatigue.
Fair enough, but only a poor military with nothing to spare will send a looney out in an $80 million dollar fighter or whatever it is the obscene price tag is these days. I don't know how it works over there, but over here, our FJ squadrons have more pilots than planes (or at least, we like to try and keep it like that IIRC), at the baseline, we have a number of pilots equivalent to an extra element that are not on flying duties, ideally, we rotate these Officers during the course of deployment, to ensure all members are well-rested.
In a unit in combat, taking losses, under enormous stress, you can't do this. Everyone will seem a little off, or a whole hell of a lot off. Nobody's going to behave normally. Some people simply fight angry to boot. That's how they're wired. You simply can't afford detailed pyschological screening when there are missions to fly and targets to kill. You'll watch your people and pull the ones who can't handle it if you can, but the system is not and cannot be perfect, and the dangers are greater than ever.
Fair enough, but as it stands, units are rotated every 30 days from the frontline IIRC (according to a manual I read a few months ago, about Combat Fatigue). Pilots these days don't go insane in 30 days.
Also I challenge your "in close proximity" considering the destroyers and other ships we've seen have more than enough space aboard to give every crew member an individual cabin, never mind crew as lofty as officer flight crew.
Arrange a tour at your local airbase. Pay particular attention when you pass the Hangar if you're lucky enough to witness the Crew Chief + His team conversing with the pilot before Take-Off.
See all my other obversations, and note that your idea of a breach of discipline and my idea of a breach of discipline are very different things. As long as you can make people people obey the regs and take orders and carry them out efficently, discipline is being maintained. If the regs don't happen to contain fraternization rules in the same form as ours...tough **** for you, I guess.
Well I'm basing my BOD's off what we're working with today, rather than a military that exists more in Battuta and Darius' heads. (Though I have some knowledge from playing the campaign and paying a little attention when the two have a storyline discussion.)
Standard military life does pretty much the same thing, but more to the point, I've already presented evidence and scenarios that directly contradict you, and nepotism is a charge unfounded as long as we don't know what exactly the rules are. It might prohibit (in fact almost certainly does prohibit, because to do otherwise would be madness) relationships with subordinates, but not those who do not fall into your unit or who are relative equals.
It bloody shouldn't if it's done right. Proper maintenance of discipline should do much the opposite, and foster professional, working relationships between members, and tighter bonds between men in the same unit.
I'll also note Dilmah has been reprimanded by Battuta for presenting his view as fact, so you don't really have a leg to stand on.
Okay. Disclaimer for anyone else who wishes to take my comments out of context. This is my opinion on discipline, and my opinion only. I am not stating facts about the UEF (I can if you'd like to though), but I'm not. I'm discussing the need for discipline in the military. As far as I'm concerned, Laporte and Simms couldn't exist as far as I cared on this matter, and thus, I'm rarely mentioning them.
I'll ignore the Galactica ad-hominem just this once, and simply relate to you the rule I've heard from somebody following every cruise of the carriers based out of San Diego. "There will be at least one female aboard who ends up involved with someone per three months of deployment. Usually an officer, not enlisted." We humans are unfortunately rather fond of sex.
Eh. How many of these women are
A) Aircrew.
B) Not in logistics.
C) Still commissioned.
BTW. What's the deal with the 27th century ? I thought BP took place a few years after Capella got toasted, which happened in 2367 
I picked a number beginning with 2.
